Multiethnic Civil Society in Interwar Hong Kong. the Historical Journal, 63(5), 1281- 1302
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Kong, V. (2020). Exclusivity and cosmopolitanism: multiethnic civil society in interwar Hong Kong. The Historical Journal, 63(5), 1281- 1302. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X20000138 Peer reviewed version License (if available): CC BY-NC-ND Link to published version (if available): 10.1017/S0018246X20000138 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Cambridge University Press at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/historical-journal/article/exclusivity- and-cosmopolitanism-multiethnic-civil-society-in-interwar-hong-kong/4ADAAFEA99963B5E9D375AF11C52E191 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ Perhaps no site captures the complex interplay between cosmopolitanism and exclusivity better than the multiracial civil society in interwar Hong Kong. The British colony had long had a vibrant associational culture, but during the interwar years its middle-class citizens became more interested than ever in voluntary societies with a multiethnic membership. Given many such institutions had a reputed membership of influential individuals, reasons such as acquiring social status and developing networks surely encouraged emerging urbanites to join. But their outwardly stated collective goals were to build cross-cultural friendships, overcome rising nationalism, and to improve the local and international society to which they belonged. With their keen enthusiasm, a multiethnic civil society flourished in interwar Hong Kong, where, at the same time, legislation and social practices engendered the hardening of racial and class boundaries. Recent historiography has suggested that cosmopolitanism was not only a vision, but a practice experienced by many in urban Asia as early as in the interwar years. Empirical studies on the public spheres of cities such as Rangoon, Singapore, and Penang demonstrate that clear-cut distinctions of ‘race’ broke down as multiple forms of cross-cultural interactions took place.1 Institutional networks and a vibrant, globally-connected print culture helped equip urbanites there with internationalist ideals and enabled supranational identities to be developed. Multiracial civic associations have received particular academic attention because they facilitated cross- cultural interactions and advocated civic sensibility and encouraging ‘civilised’ and reasoned discussions in the colonial public sphere.2 Nevertheless, this literature has focused largely on transnational networks and neglected local associations that shared with the former a strikingly similar membership. Furthermore, while existing studies have discussed how internationalism 1 Tim Harper and Sunil Amrith, ‘Introduction’, in Tim Harper and Sunil Amrith, eds., Sites of Asian interactions: ideas, network and mobility (Cambridge: 2014), pp. 1-9. Su Lin Lewis, Cities in motion: urban life and cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia, 1920-1940 (Cambridge: 2016). 2 Su Lin Lewis, ‘Rotary International’s “acid test”: multi-ethnic associational life in 1930s Southeast Asia’, Journal of Global History, 2 (2012): pp. 302-24; Lynn Hollen Lees, Planting empire, cultivating subjects: British Malaya, 1786-1941 (Cambridge, 2017), ch. 4, urban civil society. 1 shaped this associational culture, we know little about how liberal civic ideals interacted with notions of exclusivity in the interwar years.3 To overcome this, this article develops a framework that draws on both local and transnational civic associations. Through the prism of two international institutions (Freemasonry and Rotary) and two local associations (the League of Fellowship and the Kowloon Residents’ Association), I examine how urbanites in interwar Hong Kong engaged with cosmopolitan ideals while living within the limits of colonialism and the hardening of racial and national identities. I identify more than three hundred urban residents, including both white and colonial subjects with mostly of a white-collar background, who actively used civic organizations with different purposes to challenge exclusivity in both the local and global society. I argue that, while internationalism and colonial hierarchies allowed solidarity to be forged amongst multiracial urbanites and encouraged their civic engagements, racism embedded in the society, rising nationalism, and constitutional constraints put limitations on their aspirations. I structure my discussion here around their ambitions and more importantly, the limitations of such ambitions. While the first section explains how a multiracial civil society emerged in the colony, the rest of the article focuses on how racial, national, and class exclusivity shaped interwar Hong Kong’s multiracial civil society. The second section uses the League of Fellowship to discuss how racial discrimination cast a shadow over the interracial friendships they intended to build. The third section examines how even though civic nationalism encouraged urbanites to think beyond a national framework, Rotarians and Masons used their civic engagements to articulate outwardly their identification with Britishness. The last section draws on the Kowloon Residents’ Association and explains how class motivated the civic engagements of middle-class resident there. Overall, this article pushes our understanding of 3 Andrew Arsan, Su Lin Lewis, and Anne-Isabelle Richard, ‘Editorial - the roots of global civil society and the interwar moment’, Journal of Global History, 2 (2012): pp. 157-65, at p. 164. 2 Asian cosmopolitanism by illuminating its interplay with exclusivity in the colonial society of Hong Kong. I A British crown colony on the South China coast, Hong Kong was the centre of multiple diasporic networks. Its British status attracted numerous Chinese who wanted a life outside China, for Chinese immigrants could enter without possessing any kind of identification until well after the Second World War. Hong Kong’s colonial regime and thriving economy brought not only white Britons, but also those of neighboring regions. The 1931 census records a population of 821,429 Chinese, 6,684 white Britons, 3,198 ‘Portuguese’, 837 Eurasians, 3,475 Indians, and 2,046 ‘other European Races and U.S.A.’ nationals.4 Ethnic divides existed in various ways there. Legislation kept colonial subjects from residing in the ‘European’ neighbourhoods of the Victoria Peak, Tai Po, and the islands of Cheung Chau and Lantau.5 Racially exclusive schools were built in the 1900s to prevent white British children mingling with those of other ‘races’. Segregation also existed within the grown- up’s social world. As white Britons made the Hong Kong Club, the Hong Kong Cricket Club, and the Yacht Club a racially and class- exclusive social spaces, their Asian counterparts established clubs of their own. The Portuguese had Club Lusitano and Club de Recreio, whereas the well-off Chinese and Eurasians had the Chinese Club and the Chinese Recreation Club. This social world underwent tremendous changes in the late nineteenth century. Since the 1880s, a significant number of ‘Chinese bourgeoisie’ – mostly ‘returned’ overseas Chinese and Western-educated Chinese and Eurasians – rose in the colony.6 With a Western outlook, 4 William James Carrie, ‘Report on the census of the colony of Hong Kong of 1931’. Note that the Portuguese in Hong Kong, now termed ‘Macanese’, were mostly Portuguese Eurasians. More see Felicia Yap, ‘Eurasians in British Asia during the Second World War’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 4 (2011): pp. 485-505, at p. 487. 5 John M. Carroll, ‘The Peak: residential segregation in colonial Hong Kong’, in Bryna Goodman and David S. G. Goodman, eds., Twentieth-century colonialism and China: localities, the everyday and the world (London, 2012), pp. 81-91. 6 John M. Carroll, Edge of empires: Chinese elites and British colonials in Hong Kong (Cambridge, MA., 2005), pp. 13-5. 3 these Chinese bourgeoisie wanted to participate in European associational culture, both for sociability and asserting respectability. They established equally exclusive social institutions. Some actively challenged the colour bar in the colony’s social world: the Chinese Chamber of Commerce initiated various legal challenges to the Hong Kong Jockey Club, leading to its gradual acceptance of non-white members in 1927.7 The twentieth century witnessed an increasing number of colonial subjects participating in Hong Kong’s public sphere. Chinese and Eurasian elites were amongst the first colonial subjects joining the colonial polity: by 1930, eleven Chinese and Eurasians had served in the colony’s Legislative Council, with two on the Executive Council and many more on other public boards. The Portuguese were also keen participants in local politics. Several served on the Sanitary Board, the only official body then with elected members and executive powers to oversee the work of a government department.8 Since 1929, the Legislative Council had an unofficial Portuguese member. Merchants with connections with India, such as Indian-born Armenian Catchick Paul Chater, Frederick David Sassoon and Emanuel Raphael Belilios (both Baghdadi Jewish), also served in the Legislative